Although critically-acclaimed by the saison cinématographique 1985, with an extraordinary economy of means (the budget is not even that of average MTV ,Irène Jouannet 's"l'intrus" remained completely unknown ; Almost entirely filmed in an apartment ,it's not a very appealing movie ,but will reward the cine buff looking for unsung little gems of French cinema .
A little thief takes refuge in a solitary woman 's flat ;the viewer thinks :"although worlds apart , this young uneducated boy and this intellectual woman whose life is empty will fall in love and start all over again.
Pas du tout ;sex is totally absent ,and anyway the heroine , in her forties, has lost all her illusions; till the horrible unxpected end , the director avoids almost of the clichés ; Marie Dubois portrays a woman who was not given the custody of her daughters , entrusted to the father ,a brilliant lawyer ; they come to her place every weekend .She typewrites manuscripts ,thesis and reports,and she's completely indifferent ; the young lad , in love with her ,tries to get her back to the world ,to no avail .
He feels something weird in her attitude ; do those children exist? Or does she live in a make believe world ,as imaginary as the fairy tale she tells them in the dark? Her sudden changes of mood are inexplicable (for a jam stain on a paper ,she turns into a fury )
Lost in a Parisian China town, , most of their inhabitants refugees from Cambodia ,China or Vietnam , both ill-fated heroes are rootless ;both actors are excellent in this huis-clos drama.